


Expectations

by poisonandperfection



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Body Horror, Eldritch Abomination Cecil, First Time Gone Awry, Fluff, M/M, Non-Human Genitals, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-12
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-19 05:31:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/880001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisonandperfection/pseuds/poisonandperfection
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by the Night Vale kink meme,</p><p>Cecil never thought to mention it before, but now it seems so very obvious. This was not what Carlos thought he'd find when he took off Cecil's pants. They cope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Carlos broke away from their feverish kissing, flushed a few shades darker than Carnation Pink and just one or two lighter than Inverted Kidney, and opened his mouth to speak.

“Wow,” Cecil blurted mindlessly, as soon as his mouth was unoccupied. He sounded distinctly out of breath “Goodness. Oh my.” And then, “Oh, _lovely_ Carlos.” And then, “Oh, I’m so sorry!” and he covered his own mouth with a hand, blushing a delicate and unusual celadon. “What were you about to say?” he inquired shyly, muffled by the appendage.

Carlos broke into a radiant, perfect smile over him, reddened lips sliding smoothly back from his teeth like the flesh dripping from a flesh-golem. He stole another kiss. “I—Are we going to do this? Here? Now?”

Cecil glanced around, attempting to determine what it was he meant. They were tangled on Cecil’s bed, in what he would gleefully call a _passionate embrace_ on the air tomorrow. Cecil’s tie had slithered over the edge and slipped sideways into Kevin’s underbed storage 40 miles away, and his shirt was unbuttoned. The bed was situated in the center of a large summoning circle, cleverly incorporated into the homey décor and perfect for sex rituals and sacrifices, provided one was willing to splurge on high thread count sheets in a dark color, for the inevitable bloodstains.

“Do what?” The last thing Cecil had summoned had been his maiden aunt, to save on airfare at Christmastime. He much preferred thinking about how warm and firm and pleasant Carlos felt on top of him. Or did Carlos want to meet his family? Wasn’t that moving rather fast? Not that Cecil wasn’t eager to introduce Carlos to his broodmates, of course, but the scientist hadn’t even met the man from the Sheriff’s Secret Police who peered in Cecil’s third-story apartment windows every night. If he was with the Sheriff’s Secret Police.

“Have _sex_ ,” Carlos replied, managing to look fond and nervous at the exact same time.

Cecil felt silly and overeager, as he often did when faced with Carlos’s majesty. “Oh. Well, yes, I’d like that very much.” He blushed again—pink, this time, as was usual.

“I’ve just… I’ve never actually been with a man,” Carlos confessed, apropos of nothing.

“Oh?” Normally, Cecil was as enraptured by Carlos’s tangents as Night Vale had been by the Glow Cloud, but every moment he spent speaking was a moment spent not kissing Cecil, which really wouldn’t do.

Carlos seemed to deflate slightly. “Have you?”

“Yes,” Cecil admitted, trying to be patient. “Why?”

“Well, you’ll be my first, so…” He met Cecil’s blank look of bewilderment and frowned slightly, a perfect, hornless wrinkle forming in his forehead. “The first man I’ve slept with. Are you listening to me?”

“Oh,” Cecil sighed in understanding, stroking his perfect hair. “Oh, Carlos, sweet, sweet Carlos… It’s so easy to forget that you’re an outsider. I am sorry, but I simply never thought to—I’m not a man, you see, not exactly.”

Carlos looked helplessly relieved, and then worried, and then terribly concerned. Cecil basked in the light of his concern like a flower in the light of the government-sanctioned nuclear tests that he didn’t think about. “Cecil, I didn’t realize… Should I have been—I mean, should I call you something other than ‘he’? I’m so sorry, I just never thought—This doesn’t change anything, of course. I still want to—“

Cecil took pity on his fumbling. “Perfect Carlos,” he cooed, beaming. “I just knew you’d understand. You may be an outsider, but you were made for Night Vale. Male pronouns are _fine_. It’s just silly and inconvenient to use—“ He tilted his head back slightly and made an eerie, bitonal humming noise, the top note of which was a quarter tone below E sharp, and the bottom of which was an inaudible B flat fifty-seven octaves below middle C—the sound emitted by the black hole in the Perseus cluster that Cecil considered to be his grandfather. He felt Carlos tense over him, feeling the nameless horror of the infinite void, the stirring of the Nuclear Chaos that had never once sent Cecil a single birthday present, and then it stopped. “—In everyday conversation.”

For a moment, Carlos remained frozen. Cecil thought delightedly that he really was meant for Night Vale—becoming utterly still in the face of existential terror was something most new residents had to learn over time, but not Carlos, of course not. As the panic melted away and he began breathing again, Cecil kissed him happily, and he reached out and pulled the announcer close, letting out a trembling sigh. “Cecil?” he managed, slightly garbled by the enthusiastic kiss.

“Hmmm?”

It took him a moment to reply—pale and trembling as he was, kissing like this was still fairly new for them, and when he regained the presence of mind to pull away, they were both mussed and a little bit sweaty. “So what exactly is the difference between you and a man?”

Cecil wriggled his hips up against Carlos’s thigh and smiled breathlessly. “Science advocates experimentation,” he encouraged, sounding as scientific as he could.

Something in his slacks shifted and undulated and lovely, gorgeous Carlos made a small sound that might have been arousal or terror, was most likely terror, and did not stop him from opening the button and tugging down the zipper of Cecil’s narrow-cut gray twill pants without apparent fear. Cecil appreciated that, really he did.

Moments later, he was regretting the decision to play coy about his heritage, because Carlos had slipped his fingers sensually under the elastic of Cecil’s sensible boxer briefs in the effort of removing them, and he’d sort of forgotten himself for a moment—as anyone would with perfect Carlos looking down at them like that, much less putting his elegant hands in such places—and he’d, well, licked at Carlos's fingertips. That was supposed to be sexy, wasn't it? It had been a while, but he had the distinct feeling that mouths and fingers went well together. And he was pretty sure it would have worked, too, only he had never mentioned his vertical ventral mouths to Carlos before. Playing on his scientific curiosity was a great plan in theory, but in practice, it had some flaws. 

Carlos screamed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carlos is a scientist to the core. Also, he might just be the world's best romantic partner-- it's still a theory, but Cecil is pretty certain it will prove to be a scientific law.

“Sorry!” Cecil babbled, “Sorry, sorry, that was so rude, I can’t believe I—“ He felt so guilty that his second and third mouths were mumbling apologies as well, albeit inaudibly, as they had only rudimentary vocal chords.

Carlos was sitting back on his heels, a little bit away from Cecil, which was surely punishment enough for his misstep. “Cecil,” he said, and his sweet, perfect voice sounded shaky, yes, but also very gentle and very patient. “What was that?”

“My vertical ventral mouths.” Cecil offered, a bit shyly. “I’m so sorry.  Here, why don’t I just…” He stripped off his underwear quickly. “It might be easier for you to look from over there?”  

Carlos nodded slowly before allowing himself to look down. He stared a bit, and Cecil tried very hard not to feel self-conscious. “So, um… Were you,” beautiful Carlos cleared his throat and moved slightly closer to look. “Were you born with those?”

“My mouths? Yes.”

“And the, um, tentacles? Are they tentacles?”

Cecil’s tentacles twined together and squirmed nervously. "Yes? I mean, they didn't really come in until puberty."

Darling, scientific Carlos edged closer. "The inferior mouths, then, can they, you know, talk, eat, breathe?"

Cecil privately thought that it was very rude to openly consider one of someone's mouths better than the others, but forgave him instantly. "Oh, yes. They don't talk very well— I don't think my vocal chords are too strong down there— and I try not to eat that way too often... It gives me the worst indigestion, oh, it's awful."

"May I...?" Carlos reached out uncertainly, hesitating over Cecil's hips.

"Certainly!" He lifted one of his slender tentacles shyly to brush Carlos's slightly calloused and perfect palm. Carlos swallowed hard and held very still for a moment, until, smiling brightly, Cecil returned the appendage to the demure twist of limbs in his lap and allowed the scientist to trace uncertainly along his hipbone, frowning in concentration.

"So the iliac crest is normal?"

"Yes," said Cecil, having no idea what that was.

Gentle fingers moved ever-so-slightly inwards, pressing cautiously against the indent between hipbone and upper lip. "Do you have extra lungs? Or do these just..." He trailed off, pursing what Cecil assumed were his only two full, perfect lips.

"I'm mostly certain that my mouths all go to the same places." He smiled shyly with the lips Carlos was examining, and the scientist jumped.

"Okay. Okay. What's the social etiquette of extra mouths? I mean, romantically. Not the social etiquette, but _your_ etiquette. Your preferences. Should I ignore them or, uh," he hesitated a second, "Kiss them, or... What?"

All of Cecil's mouths broke into blissful, beaming smiles. "Oh, _wonderful_ Carlos," he sighed, "Sweet, enchanting Carlos. You may do whatever you like-- within the bounds of local and global law, of course." Perfect Carlos the Scientist was still interested in him! His heart was, metaphorically, soaring. He should have had more faith and realized that a scientist would never be so shallow. But Carlos was speaking, and he tried to banish the pinkish haze of affection to listen.

"I should have expected this," he was saying, smiling faintly himself and very hesitantly examining the tentacles, with repeated glances upward to be certain that Cecil didn't mind. "You're more than the voice of Night Vale, Cecil. You're its spirit." He manipulated a tentacle carefully, exploring its range of motion. 

Cecil's heart swelled so violently that he was not, at first, certain it was metaphorical. "Oh, _Carlos_ ," he whispered, blushing with pride. "Do you really think so?" 

"Oh, absolutely.” Perfect, incredible Carlos looked almost surprised that Cecil was surprised. “Night Vale is amazing and terrifying and inexplicable. It’s everything I wanted that I couldn’t find anywhere else—there’s a whole new set of rules to discover. I could work here for the rest of my life without ever solving it.” He flashed another of his stunning smiles, and Cecil thought dazedly that Carlos had only one mouth because more than one of his smiles simultaneously would kill most sentient creatures.

He opened his facial mouth and "I love you," came out on its own. 

"I know." Perfect Carlos kissed him. "You said so on the radio." 

Cecil giggled nervously. 

"I love you, too, Cecil." It went unsaid that he didn't offer to kiss just anybody's ventral mouths-- but that was alright, because Cecil knew. 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Expectations](https://archiveofourown.org/works/907341) by [einzwitterion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/einzwitterion/pseuds/einzwitterion)




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